BAYONNE — Four people, including a toddler, were shot and killed in Bayonne Monday night in what police are describing as a triple murder-suicide that erupted from a domestic dispute, according to neighbors, a Hudson County official and a law enforcement document obtained by The Star-Ledger.
According to Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Tim Moriarty, the gunman was identified as 28-year-old Adepso Collado. The 28-year-old apparently shot his estranged wife, 26-year-old Kenia Collado, 31-year-old Jose Guzman and Guzman's 14-month old son Matthew, according to Moriarty .
Two other children were inside the home at the time of the slaughter, but they escaped unharmed according to Bayonne Mayor Mark Smith and the prosecutor's e-mail.
A fifth victim was wounded and rushed to Bayonne Medical Center where she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after the shootings, which occurred in a small, white ranch house on Avenue A, in a neighborhood in the shadow of the Bayonne Bridge.
Adepso and Kenia Collado had been estranged for roughly six months, according to the couple's former employer, Jihad Moukdad, who identified Jose Guzman as Kenia Collado's "boyfriend."
Smith, who was at the scene late Monday night, said initial reports indicated that one person did all the shooting, first firing at two adults, then the infant, and then turning the gun on himself.
"It is a tragedy and a senseless loss of life for the family and the community as a whole," the mayor said.
Two of the victims died of gunshot wounds at the scene, according to the police document, and the gunman also died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside the Avenue A home.
Moukdad said he had known Kenia Collado since she was 18, describing her as his "right hand woman." Kenia Collado worked at his Secaucus office roughly eight years, serving as a phlebotomist and technology consultant. The doctor said Adepso Collado had also worked there as a phlebotomist for a number of years, but had recently completed a nursing degree and left the office to become a dialysis nurse.
According to Moukdad, the Collados had separated roughly six months ago and were going through a divorce. During that same time period, Kenia Collado became involved with Jose Guzman, and Moukdad said he warned the young woman not to bring her boyfriend around her former husband.
"I know that because I told her many times, five or six times, don’t let the boyfriend around your kids," Moukdad said. "She was still married, she’s separated but not divorced."
Moukdad described Adepso Collado as "calm and soft-spoken."
"He never spoke unless you spoke to him," Moukdad said. "But I don’t know what happened when they are not here."
Kenia Collado leaves behind three daughters, according to Moukdad, who last saw the 26-year-old around 2 p.m. Monday, when she left work early to drive her one-year-old and her mother to the airport for a three-month vacation to the Dominican Republic.
The fifth victim was apparently a live-in baby sitter hired by Kenia Collado, according to Moukdad. The prosecutor identified her as a 25-year-old woman.
The neighborhood was swarming with activity Monday night, as police went door to door, talking with neighbors. Area residents milled around, trying to dissect what happened.
Two family members came to the house, started crying and were allowed to enter.
The shootings occurred around 8 p.m. Police responded to a call of shots being fired at 96 Avenue A, and found a woman outside the house suffering from a gunshot wound, officials said in an interview with The Jersey Journal. The woman spoke little English but was able to convey to the officers that there were more people shot inside the home, officials said.
When police entered the house, they found a man and a woman shot dead, officials said. A boy, who was 1 to 1½ years old, had also been shot and was rushed to the hospital, but did not survive, officials said.
Adepso Collado apparently held an associates degree in nursing, according to an article published in The Jersey Journal in May, and was honored during an event sponsored by the Think student newspaper at Liberty Science Center.
It was not clear whether the man was dead when police arrived or whether he shot himself after police had entered the home.
About 15 to 20 shots altogether were fired, and police believe a gun recovered at the scene was the one used in the killings, officials said.
Around the neighborhood, stunned residents were trying to get a handle on what had happened.
Has Jones, 30, said he heard the gunfire. "I heard four shots and then it stopped, and then I heard screaming and then three more shots," he said.
Jones, who lives about 50 feet from the house where the shooting took place, said the person screaming was a woman.
Nicole Poesl, 33, who walked several blocks from her home to the scene Monday night, said she saw a police officer exit the house, cradling a young girl in his arms.
She said she asked police: "What’s going on? Murder-suicide?" and an officer shook his head, "yes."
Some residents said a "lady with two kids" lived in the home.
Late Monday evening, a gray Maxima was towed away from where it had been parked, a half-block away, under the overpass to the bridge.
At Bayonne Medical Center, where the only survivor was taken, a young man sobbed violently outside, after waiting for hours with family. The man, a hood over his head, crouched between support pillars and rocked back and forth. He held his hands to his ears, shouting "no" between sobs.
A strong police presence remained at the hospital late Monday. A half-dozen patrolmen waited at the emergency room entrance, passing bits of information to mourners gathered outside.
The well-kept, but not upscale neighborhood of one- and two-story homes where the shootings occurred is practically beneath the Bayonne Bridge. Some neighbors said they had often seen a woman in a nurse’s uniform at or around the house where the shootings took place.
Angel Ortega, 63, said he walks his dog past the house around 6 every morning, and often stopped to speak with a man at that address. He said the man, a Dominican, kept an impressive vegetable garden.
Ortega described him as "tranquil."
John Machin, who lives down the block from the house, said the family had moved in less than a year ago. "It’s a quiet neighborhood," he said.
The two girls who were unharmed in the triple murder-suicide Monday night in Bayonne are in the thoughts and prayers of their classmates and the faculty at their elementary school, the principal said in a statement today.
The girls, whose ages and grade levels have not been released, are students at Henry E. Harris School in Bayonne.
No comments:
Post a Comment